NEW YORK — North America’s largest commuter rail system was shut down Saturday after unionized workers in the New York City area went on strike.
The Long Island Rail Road that serves the city’s eastern suburbs ceased operations early Saturday morning after five unions representing about half its workforce walked off the job.
The two sides have been negotiating for months on a new contract, and President Donald Trump’s administration had even interceded to try and broker a deal. But the unions were legally allowed to strike starting at 12:01 a.m. Saturday.
Kevin Sexton of the National Vice President of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen said no new negotiations have been scheduled.
“We’re far apart at this point,” Sexton said early Saturday. “We are truly sorry that we are in this situation.”
Janno Lieber, the MTA chairman, said the agency “gave the union everything they said they wanted in terms of pay” and that to him it was apparent the unions always intended to walk out.
The walkout, the first for the LIRR since a two-day strike in 1994, promises to cause headaches for some sports fans planning to see the crosstown baseball rivals the New York Yankees and Mets battle this weekend or to watch the NBA’s New York Knicks playoff run at Madison Square Garden in Manhattan. Both sports venues have dedicated LIRR stops.
If the shutdown continues past the weekend, the roughly 250,000 people who ride the system to and from work each weekday will be forced to find alternative routes into New York City from its Long Island suburbs.
For many, that likely means navigating the region’s notoriously congested roads.
“People are still going to commute, but if everybody starts driving now, the traffic is only going to get worse,” said Rich Piccola, an accountant who commutes into the city as he waited at Penn Station for a train home Thursday.
Gov. Kathy Hochul is urging Long Islanders to work from home if possible. The MTA has said it will provide limited shuttle buses to New York City subway stations, but that contingency plan wasn’t envisioned to handle all the riders the system normally carries on a workday.
And while remote work options greatly expanded during the COVID-19 pandemic, many workers still need to show up in person, said Lisa Daglian, executive director of the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA, a commuter advocacy group.
“You work in construction, you work in the healthcare industry, you work at a school or you’re about to graduate from school, that’s not always possible,” she said of telecommuting. “People need to get where they need to go.”
The most recent contract talks have stalled on the question of worker’s salaries and health care premiums.
The MTA has said the unions’ initial demands would have led to fare increases and impacted contract negotiations with other unionized workers.
The unions, which represent locomotive engineers, machinists, signalmen and other train workers, have said more substantial raises were warranted to help workers keep up with inflation and rising living costs.
Duane O’Connor, who was picketing on Saturday morning at Penn Station, said that while he regrets the impact on commuters, workers are simply asking for fair wages.
“I feel terrible. Terrible. This is going to hurt. This is going to hurt the island, this is going to hurt the city … All we are asking for is fair wages. Record inflation the last few years. Our contract goes back three years, it’s not going forward, so we went through those record inflationary years and they’re trying to lowball us,” he said.
Some riders, while sympathetic to the union’s affordability concerns, worry they’ll bear the brunt of any pay raises.
If the unions get the pay increases they are looking for, “it will come at the expense of our riders who will see next year’s 4% fare increase doubled to 8%,” Gerard Bringmann, chair of the LIRR Commuter Council, a rider advocacy group, said in a statement. “Like the union workers, we too are burdened by the increase in the cost of living here on Long Island.”
With Hochul, a Democrat, facing reelection later this year, the pressure might be on the MTA to strike a deal to end the shutdown, said William Dwyer, a labor relations expert at Rutgers University in New Jersey, where commuter rail workers staged a three-day strike last year.
“She’s up for reelection, and Long Island is a critical vote for her,” he said. “So if there’s a significant fare hike, that does not bode well for her on Election Day.”
